


A Most Unlikely Hero

by GirlInterrupted36



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Bernadetta and Ignatz, Bernadetta and Yuri, F/M, FE3H Whump Week, FE3H au, Hurt, Public Execution, Violence, Whump, yuridetta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:13:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27777427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GirlInterrupted36/pseuds/GirlInterrupted36
Summary: It is the beginning of Bernadetta's time at the monastery. She has been struggling to learn how to interact with kids her own age, and she spends a great deal of time hiding in her room under the burden of her anxiety. But when a sinister force takes over Garreg Mach, it appears that Bernadetta, the self proclaimed winner of the least like to be a hero award, is the only one who can save them all.
Kudos: 10





	1. We Are the Darkness

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is playing a tad off of And Then There Were None! Consider yourselves warned! But do not fear...Bernadetta is here! No, really.

In the corner of the dining hall, Bernadetta sat, finished with her classes for the day, eating a piece of cake as she ran an interested eye over the latest news in the Garreg Mach Times.

She laid the paper down and glanced out the window as the sun began to dip lower — there wasn’t much time before the other students came to the dining hall. Being with just the chef wasn’t so bad. It was when everybody else showed up that things inside her head got dicey.

“Hi, Bernadetta.”

It was that girl with the white hair that always played with the magics. Bernadetta had always secretly wished she could be better at magic. _You can do it, Bernadetta,_ she told herself. _Tell her hello back like a normal girl._

“H—hi!’ Bernadetta forced out. _Lysithea. Her name is Lysithea._ “Hi L-Lysithea.”

The girl plopped onto the bench across from Bernadetta, who desperately looked around for an escape route. “Is that chocolate cake?”

“I—“

“You got it here?” Lysithea interrupted before Bernadetta could force her answer out. “I want cake too.” And then she was up and gone and at the dining counter demanding a piece of cake just the same type as Bernadetta had.

Bernadetta folded the Times and shoved it into her bag before swinging her legs around to flee before the other girl came back. She couldn’t help but feel that she never should have come to Garreg Mach; she didn’t know how to socialize with these people when they were all so…scary.

Before she could stand up, Lysithea was back, empty-handed. For a girl so short, her presence still towered overhead. “Are you leaving? You’re done? Might I have the rest of your cake?”

Unsure how to respond, Bernadetta shrank back against the table.

“They said you got the last piece.” When Bernadetta still said nothing, she blushed and added, “I mean if you’re taking it with you I’m sorry. I guess this was a bit rude. I just…really like cake?” She crossed around and sat back down on the other side of the table.

Bernadetta turned back on the bench to face Lysithea and slowly pushed the plate over. “Y-you can h-have it.” Sharing seemed like the polite thing to do.

“Really? Thanks!”

Bernadetta watched as Lysithea shoveled the cake in her mouth like she hadn’t had cake in months.

“I’m sorry,” Lysithea said again, the words coming in between mouthfuls of cake. “I’m just really hungry and it looked so good. Everyone tells me I might have a problem with sweets but I don’t think…” She looked at the plate and then at the fork and then stopped talking. “Maybe I have a problem…”

“It’s okay,” Bernadetta whispered to the floor, so quietly she wasn’t even sure she’d said it at all.

“Hey, I’m going to the library. If you want to come. Have you been to the library yet?”

Only on the new student tour. A million thoughts flashed through Bernadetta’s mind. Was she supposed to want that? To go somewhere with this girl? Was this student…bonding? She _should_ want that. She should _not_ want to go to her room and knit by herself. “I—I could go.”

“Okay!” Lysithea returned the now-empty plate to the counter and beckoned for Bernadetta to follow her. They went out into the courtyard and around the building towards the stairs to the second floor. “So,” Lysithea said over her shoulder, “do you like it here so far?” Before Bernadetta could answer, she continued, “I do, I think. I really like my classes, and my professor. And I’m sorry, I asked you a question and didn’t let you answer. So do you like it here?”

_People my age sure use a lot of words_ , Bernadetta thought. Out loud she said, “I-it’s okay.” Even though she wasn’t so sure yet that it was.

“I’m enjoying learning about magic the most, of course.”

“I…I l-like using my b-bow.” _Did I do it?_ Bernadetta was silently pleased with herself for making conversation, and even more pleased with Lysithea smiled at her encouragingly. She took another step towards bravery and continued, “I w-wish I could use magic.”

“I could help you if you want! And there are some books in the library. I’ve learned so much just hanging out in there studying up. I’ll show you when we get there.”

The two girls walked up the stairs to the second floor, heading for the library. Voices filled the hall. Angry voices.

“This is unacceptable!!!”

Lysithea grabbed Bernadetta’s arm as they heard Rhea’s voice booming down the corridor.

“To enter this house, to say these things, this is an _outrage_! You do have a use, a purpose, and you would do well to stick to that! I could have your heads for thi—“ Rhea’s words cut off abruptly and everything fell silent.

And then came the alarm. The professors had told the students about the alarm of course, but it was one thing to hear about it, and another thing altogether to actually hear it.

“Is that the emergency alarm?” Lysithea was suddenly shrinking behind Bernadetta, as if Bernadetta was the brave one.

“We-we have to g-get to the library.” Bernadetta grabbed the girl’s arm and began to drag her down the hallway.

Lysithea tried to pull back towards the stairs. “No, we have to go outside, we have to—“

“Library,” Bernadetta cut her off, more firmly than she could ever remember saying anything before. “Library and shut the door.”

They sprinted down the hallway hand in hand, their week of practice and combat training with their professor coming in handy. A sound behind them, a hum, almost a hiss, and then they were in the library and slamming the door behind them.

“Did that say….”

“We are the darkness.” A boy stepped out of the shadows, pushing his glasses up his nose. Bernadetta struggled to remember his name, but he extended a hand and introduced himself as they shook. “Ignatz. And you’re…Bernadetta?”

She nodded, grateful she didn’t have to say it. It was even harder for her to talk around boys than it was for her to talk around girls.

“They said, ‘we are the darkness.’ They’ve been saying it. Something about the church and crests…I was going to the advisory room to bring something to Rhea when everything just got…dark. She saw me, and she told me to run, and I…did.” He shoved his glasses back up his nose again, angrily this time. “I ran. She was yelling, and I ran. I shouldn’t have done that but…”

As he fell silent, the alarm dwindled down to a whine and then died altogether.

“What’s happening?” Lysithea stared up the stairs to the second floor of bookcases as a noise began outside. “Should we…?”

The three of them walked up the stairs, Ignatz in the lead. But at the top, it was Bernadetta who found herself climbing the ladder to the top of the bookshelves and pressing her hands to the tall windows that looked down on the classrooms across the courtyard below. She was desperate to know what was happening.

The Professor stood outside the Blue Lions classroom, her hands in the air. Manuela and Hanneman stood to either side, poised as if ready to strike. From her vantage point, Bernadetta couldn’t hear what The Professor said, but she heard the rising up of “We are the darkness” as that darkness moved into view.

Rhea moved slowly down the middle of the courtyard, seemingly floating, surrounded in a strange purple fog. Students from the three houses who still lingered after their classes cowered back into their classrooms at the ominous sound that came from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Hanneman and Manuela moved to shepherd students away as Professor stepped forward, hands around her sword and ready to strike. The humming almost-chanting morphed into something else entirely.

“Students of Garreg Mach!!!”

The voice took shape in the fog; a horde of purple and black shadowy creatures that surrounded Rhea and propelled her forward.

“We have your Archbishop!”

Bernadetta shrank back from the window. “I-it’s Rhea,” she stammered to the students below. “S-someone—thing h-has Rhea.”

“Let me see!” Lysithea scrambled up the ladder to the top of the bookcase and perched beside Bernadetta, but upon seeing the shadowy forms scrambled back so fast she almost fell. “Oh no. Oh no no no no no. No no no no no.”

“A challenge to the Church of Seiros is a challenge to all of us.” Bernadetta recognized the Professor’s voice, as strong and true as when they practiced combat. Only this was real. “Do not make me draw my sword.”

“We have no need for your form of worship!” The entity outside continued to yell as Bernadetta reached out to steady Lysithea before she tumbled back to the floor.

“Get down,” Bernadetta whispered. “B-before you fall.” She turned back to the tall window and pressed a palm against the glass. The Professor had indeed drawn her sword, and it was hefted against a fog that slowly began to swallow it as the two met.

“You who preach against relations with those who are different from you! You who only follow this single cause!”

The Professor took a step back, her hand clutched around an empty, blade-less hilt.

“Bernadetta, what do you see?” Ignatz cried out from below. Loudly. He was too loud.

She waved a hand to silence him, focused on the forms surrounding Rhea. They were see-through, maybe? They almost appeared to have cloaks of some sort, or capes. No discernible faces, at least not that she could see from so far above them.

“Ghosts, Ignatz. They’re…I think they’re…They look like…”

Bernadetta could practically hear Lysithea’s bones clattering together as she shook in fear. Strangely, as she looked out the window and watched Rhea levitate another foot off the ground, Bernadetta found she just felt…cold inside. Rhea was frozen, her eyes open but not moving, her mouth in a small o-shape. Bernadetta thought back to how Rhea had given her herbs to put in her tea her first week at the monastery, had tried to make her feel welcome in a place where she clearly did not fit.

“Join us and rid the world of these falsehoods!”

The shadow people circled Rhea, slowly at first and then faster and faster.

“This is the end of an era and the rise of a new power! Our power!”

As Bernadetta watched, the shadows formed into a shaky sword that quivered shakily against the brightness of the courtyard and then sliced off Rhea’s head in one fell swoop. The Professor stood there, facing the scene, and the hilt she still clutched tumbled to the ground. A scream sliced through the sudden silence as Rhea’s head dropped to the grass and rolled, teal hair billowing out to eventually cover her forever open eyes.

“You could have our heads, but we _will_ have yours,” came the echo as the shadows sank back to the grass.

Bernadetta didn’t realize she was scrambling away from the window until she was falling, didn’t realize that scream that was oh so loud was coming from inside of her until she got the wind knocked out of her crashing down on top of Ignatz and the sound finally stopped.

“Ouchhhhh, goddess, Bernadetta, what is…” Ignatz clawed out from underneath her but grew quiet when he saw her face. “What has happened?”

_Rhea’s dead_. Bernadetta thought the words as hard as she could, but they wouldn’t leave her mouth. She wasn’t good at words. She wasn’t good in a crisis. She wasn’t…anything.

From outside, the humming chant of ‘we are the darkness’ began to rise up again. Bernadetta closed her eyes and let herself go somewhere else inside her head.


	2. Run

“Bernadetta.”

 _If I keep my eyes closed, none of this is real, right?_ Bernadetta did not want to open her eyes to the world that she was currently in.

“Bernadetta!” It was that boy, Ignatz, and this time he shook her shoulder so roughly that she had no choice but to open her eyes.

Lysithea was in the corner, her back against a bookcase and her arms wrapped around her knees as she rocked back and forth. “Ghosts,” she whispered, “definitely ghosts, they are definitely ghosts.”

Ignatz helped Bernadetta to sit up, and she let him because she wasn’t sure what else to do. “What did you see out there?’

Bernadetta shook her head slowly. “I-I…I’m n-not sure.” With a deep breath, she tried to reorient her thoughts. “The sword…disappeared. But then a n-new sw-sword, and it was m-made of t-the fog…”

“A ghost sword?” Lysithea’s eyes were wide as she peered up over her knees. “Was it a ghost sword?”

Shrugging, Bernadetta turned back to Ignatz and said, more quietly, “R-rhea is…”

Ignatz seemed to realize the end of the sentence without her having to say it. He sank down onto his butt in front of her and pushed himself back against the railing. “She’s gone.”

Bernadetta nodded.

“So what now?” His eyes looked huge behind the glasses he pushed up for at least the twentieth time since they’d come into the library. “What should we do?”

It was completely unclear to Bernadetta why everyone was looking to her when she was the last possible person that anyone should count on. “S-should we…see what’s going on?”

His face resolute, Ignatz got to his feet and climbed up to the top of the bookcase to peer out the window. “I can’t see anything except…”

He didn’t have to say it. Bernadetta saw Rhea’s head tumbling to the ground everywhere she looked. She stood up and looked down to the first level of the library below. There was no one there except for the three of them. “S-should we go to the hallway and see if we can s-s-see anything?”

“No, no hallway.” Lysithea drew herself into an even tighter ball. “No outside. I’m not going out there, absolutely not.”

“Well, we can’t just stay here.” Ignatz went down the stairs and pressed an ear against the door. “We’re just such…sitting ducks in here.”

“I am not going out where the ghosts are.” Lysithea’s cheeks flushed with the force of her insistence.

“If they’re really ghosts, won’t they just come right on inside once they realize we’re here?” He pressed a palm against the doorknob and then drew back. “We cannot stay here and you’re—“

“S-st-stop arguing!” Bernadetta interrupted. She crossed down to the first level and cracked open the door. Somebody had to do it. There was nothing there, but voices drifted from farther away, maybe back down the corridor and down the stairs? One benefit to her social isolation was that Bernadetta knew the darkest corners and places to hide within the school. She crept forward and pressed herself into the corner beside the stairwell, under the bulletin board, Ignatz at her heels.

Lysithea plunged after them, much too fast and loud, crying, “You can’t leave me alone! What if the ghosts come in? What if—“

Ignatz put a hand over her mouth. “Sssssssshhhhhh,” he hissed. The other girl froze and clamped her lips together when his hand pulled away.

Bernadetta left them and crept down the stairs slightly, just enough to be able to see the corridor below that led towards the outside. A draft whipped towards them, indicating the doors were open, and Bernadetta could make out The Professor and the other teachers below.

“Tell us what you want.” The Professor’s voice had lost some of the bravado she’d had prior to Rhea’s death. “Why are you here?”

Manuela flicked her cloak to the side nervously. “Certainly not to look at me. Though I wouldn’t blame you if you did.”

The shadows drifted into view, and Bernadetta pulled back into the shadows of the stairwell. Closer now than she had been up in the library, she could tell they were clearly people. But also weren’t. Their features in profile were somehow distinct yet not at the same time, partially obscured by their cloaks of fog but also burned into Bernadetta’s retinas.

“We want…what was taken from us.” Their voices all rose together in speech, sounding like a hundred angry bodies.

“We’ve taken nothing from you.” The Professor held firm as the shadows pressed into her face, surrounding her.

“Not you. Your ancestor, and the Church.”

“My father is not connected to the Church.” The Professor pressed backwards, closer to Bernadetta’s hiding spot, but the shadows stayed with her.

“You are all connected to the Church.”

“The Church of Seiros is eternal, fiends.” Bernadetta couldn’t see Hanneman, but she heard his familiar chastising tone, the knowing of something more than the party he was against in conversation. And then there was a pop, and Manuela fell to her knees.

“You…you…” Manuela couldn’t seem to form words. Bernadetta couldn’t remember ever seeing the older woman speechless.

“You.” The shadows in view raised what appeared to be arms. “Join her on your knees.”

As the arms came down, the Professor struggled against their unseen magic as she sank to her knees. “The Church of Seiros is no more. We are eternal. Make your choice; are you with us, or against us?”

Manuela continued to cry, lowering her palms to the ground for balance. “Hanneman…” she sobbed. And then, “I…I am with you.”

“Manuela!!” The Professor spat. “No! Think of the students!”

“I _am_ ,” Manuela protested vehemently. “Everything I have done for all the years I’ve been here. All for the students.”

As Bernadetta watched, the apparitions produced something akin to a wand, and it hovered in midair. She felt Ignatz’s breath on her neck and turned, a finger to her lips. When she turned back, a symbol had begun to appear on Manuela’s forehead, bright as fire.

“No, wait—“ Manuela raised her hands, but before she could touch the brand, she dissipated into thin air. To Bernadetta’s horror, it almost seemed that the fog that had been Manuela became one of the shadows.

Ignatz gasped, and Bernadetta elbowed him back up the stairwell.

“I have never seen anything like that in my life.” His glasses had fallen when Bernadetta shoved him, but he didn’t bother to prop them back up.

“I-I-I…haven’t either,” Bernadetta stammered.

From below:

“They call you Professor?”

“Yes.”

“Professor, make your choice.”

When Bernadetta peered back down below, the Professor had stopped struggling. “What will happen to my students?”

“The ones who watch us now?” As one, the shadows turned towards the stairwell where Bernadetta and the others were clearly not as out of sight as they’d thought. “Come out, little ones.”

Bernadetta and Ignatz took a single step together out of the darkness. From somewhere up above, Lysithea mumbled “Oh no, no no absolutely not, no no,” but then she was floating out to join them, her knees once again curled up to her chest.

The words to articulate her fear were lost to Bernadetta, but she met the Professor’s gaze through the purplish black haze. The fear across her countenance was palpable, but Bernadetta realized it probably mirrored everything she found she couldn’t say. She tried not to look to the right, where Hanneman’s now headless body lay, but she just couldn’t get herself to stop.

“Are these your students?”

The way they spoke was hard to wrap the brain around; apart, yet together, a hiss, yet understandable speech. Bernadetta wondered if she could see Manuela again, if she stared into the shadows hard enough, but she was too petrified to move.

The Professor nodded slowly. “They are but a few, yes. If I…join you, you will spare them?”

“If you join us, we will take them as well.”

Lysithea reached out and squeezed Bernadetta’s hand so hard that her bones popped. She let out a small whimper as the shadow swirled, their cloaks of fog grazing against the students as they circled around the Professor. Bernadetta didn’t know much about what was going on, but she understood that there were only two choices being presented—to join the shadows, or to be dead like Rhea and Hanneman. And neither of those choices seemed appeared.

The Professor looked straight at the three of them as she responded to the shadows. “I am with you.”

As the shadows raised their mysterious wand again to level at the Professor’s forehead, the Professor mouthed a single word at them.

_Run._

And run they did.


	3. Goodnight, Beautiful

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Admittedly, this is the weakest chapter of my FE3H Whump Week piece, but as you will find out from the end, I had to get from Point A to Point B! Enjoy :).

The Wilting Rose Inn was empty. Bernadetta had never seen it that way before in the few times she had crept down to consider a visit with Yuri.

Lysithea was bent over with her hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath. “Where are we?? This isn’t a part of the school I’ve ever been to before!”

“I believe this is the Abyss,” Ignatz replied helpfully. “I’ve never had reason to come down here, but is there not a fourth house? That studies here?”

“I-it seemed l-like a good place to hide,” Bernadetta stammered, wringing her hands together as she sat down at an empty table. “We r-ran so much…”

“I just want to sit.” Lysithea lowered herself into another chair at the table, and Ignatz followed. “Do you think the….ghosts are gone?” She drew her legs up so that her feet perched on the edge of the chair and she could hug her knees to her chest. “Because I don’t ever want to see that again.”

The skin around Bernadetta’s thumb began to bleed where she had nervously torn at the flesh. “I—“

“I think it’s not likely that they’re gone, Lysithea. More like we’re gone for now. But they seemed to know stuff?” He turned to look at Bernadetta uncertainly. “Didn’t they?”

Bernadetta didn’t want to word. She didn’t want to do anything but eat the skin around her nails. Or see Yuri. There was so much between the two of them that she hadn’t yet had the courage to say and what if he was…She remembered the last time that she’d seen him, sitting here in this very inn, nursing a drink and talking to another girl from his class that Bernadetta didn’t know. How she’d hidden in the corner, watching the two of them, trying to work up the courage to walk over and say _I think you might be my lost childhood friend_ but never actually gathering the strength. She regretted it now. The not knowing his whereabouts had sent her anxiety through the roof.

“Bernadetta? Didn’t they?” Ignatz shoved his glasses up his nose as he repeated himself.

“T-they k-knew we were t-there,” she forced out. “I d-don’t know how.”

“Does that mean they know that we’re… _down here_?” Lysithea drew herself into an even tighter ball than Bernadetta would have thought possible.

Bernadetta wanted to be a ball. In blankets. Or better yet, a burrito. A burrito in blankets eating cake. “M-Maybe? W-we should have w-weapons,” were the words that left her mouth instead.

“The marketplace is so far from here.” Ignatz’s frown sent his glasses sliding down his nose again.

“I don’t need a weapon, really. I can magic them in the face.” Lysithea held out a shaking hand as if to cast a spell, but nothing happened. “Well…normally.”

“Sometimes when I’m n-ne-nervous, I can’t shoot my b-bow as well.” Bernadetta stared at the other girl wondering if that was even the right thing to say, but when Lysithea smiled shakily in return, she knew she’d gotten it right. “There a p-place down here. The s-scrap heap.”

“And it has weapons? Can we go there?” Ignatz pushed his chair back from the table.

“I-I think so.” Bernadetta pointed out the door to the dark hallway beyond. “It d-doesn’t seem like anyone is h-here.”

“Can you show me?” To Lysithea, he said, “You too. You shouldn’t stay by yourself.”

She nodded and got up reluctantly, her white hair swinging forward to hide her face as she said, “I know how to use swords, a little,” and then reached up seemingly to scrub away her tears.

Bernadetta got up and led them out of the inn, following the dim light of the wall torches down the corridor towards where she remembered the scrap heap being. They reached the end of a corridor and turned to find a dagger at her throat.

“Stop there, fiend.”

The voice was so familiar. It was him. Definitely him. And he had a dagger against the soft flesh of her neck. “Y-yuri?”

The dagger fell almost instantly. “Bernadetta?? Bernadetta, is that you??” And then, “Quickly, come!” He dragged her by the hand before she could protest, pulling her forward into a classroom, Ignatz and Lysithea close behind. “We’re all hiding in here.”

“A—all?” Bernadetta stammered. But then they were in the room, and she saw them. The three house leaders, and a small handful of students, scattered around the room sitting and standing and leaning. Not everyone was there. But many of them. The door shut behind them, and Bernadetta heard the sound of a bolt slide home as she took in the room.

“Ignatz! Lysithea! I’m so glad that you’re okay!” Claude pushed off the wall and swept the two of them into what seemed to be a Golden Deer corner.

Edelgard, his complete opposite, nodded in her direction. “Bernadetta.” Bernadetta hadn’t expected anything more.

“Bernadetta,” Yuri took her hand and pulled her away. “I…I had no idea you were here. I…”

“I-I’ve thought…You d-died. And t-then I saw you h-here and I…”

“I didn’t die, Bernadetta, I—“

“Another time, shall we darlings?” A girl with blonde hair held back by a headband swept over to their corner. “Introduce me and then let’s get on with the planning.”

Yuri swept his hand out in introductions obligingly. “Constance, this is Bernadetta, my oldest childhood friend. Bernadetta, this is Constance, my fellow student in the Ashen Wolves and co-conspirator in this,” he waved around the room, “thing we’re calling an escape attempt.”

“Yuri here heard the siren and he shepherded as many students as he could down here to go into lockdown.” Constance pointed at the bookcase in the corner, behind Edelgard and Hubert. “Because, as you may not know, we have a secret exit from this classroom.”

“And I think it would behoove us to begin moving out, now that we know the creatures have chased Bernadetta and friends down here. They are undoubtably on their way.” Yuri stood beside the book case.

“Is the tunnel well lit?” Edelgard asked, taking a step back to appraise things.

“It is not.” Yuri pointed to a taller man with shaggy brown hair. “But my friend Balthus will escort all of you out the other side.”

“Where is that?” Dimitri asked, Annette and Dedue over his shoulder.

“Near the village outside the monastery, Remire.” the man Yuri had called Balthus responded. “I have taken this route many times. It can be done, but Yuri is right. We should go now.”

Edelgard turned to Bernadetta with interest for the first time Bernadetta could remember. “Did you see them?”

“I-I…” Bernadetta didn’t like Edelgard and had never been comfortable with her.

“They put a brand on your forehead and that makes you one of them, I believe.” Ignatz stood up from his spot beside Claude. “They took the Professor. And Manuela. But Hanneman and Rhea are…they’re…”

“We know,” Dimitri told him. “We saw what happened to Rhea and it was…”

“A l-lot,” Bernadetta supplied. “It w-was a lot.”

Beside her, Yuri took her hand again. “I’m sorry you had to see that,” he whispered as he leaned into her ear.

Her old childhood friend. He was okay. Thank the goddess.

“Little ones, we know you’re here!”

The sudden words echoed, bouncing off the stone walls of the Abyss and through the locked classroom door, and just as quickly as things had felt okay, they suddenly were anything but.

“Go,” Yuri hissed, waving them towards the hidden door. “Go now, get out!”

Dimitri and Dedue grabbed the bookcase and hauled it aside, revealing the door Yuri had mentioned. “Quickly,” Dimitri waved the students into the darkness. “Quickly!”

“Little ones, join our mission!” Their tone was somewhere between singsong and mocking.

“What mission??” Yuri yelled. “Tell us what you want!” He glanced over his shoulder and said more quietly, “Bernadetta, get _out_ of here.”

She shook her head vehemently. “N-no. I won’t leave you again.”

From somewhere in the corridor came: “We must restore what has been taken from us. We must fix what the Church has shattered..”

Half of the students were out the secret door.

“Bernadetta…” His voice trailed off. “I…I’m going to stall them. When everyone is out, close the bookcase. Hide the door. Maybe they won’t know. Maybe the others will have enough time.”

She wanted to reach out and stop him as he undid the bolt, but she also knew that there was no stopping Yuri when he wanted to help others. She could only do as he asked and watch as he slid the bolt open and slipped out the door.

Ignatz was the last student to go. He paused halfway into the darkness. “Do you want me to stay?”

“N-no, we’ll catch up.” Bernadetta tried to put more confidence behind the words that she actually felt, and she must have been successful because Ignatz nodded and then disappeared. Bernadetta pushed the bookcase over the opening and the crept to the door and cracked it open.

Yuri was on his knees, his arms folded across his chest. Bernadetta could just make out his profile, the handsome slant of his nose, in the glow of the corridor torchlight heavily obscured by the Shadows. She saw the wand in the air, the same wand she had seen outside, but there was nowhere to go. Her eyes refused to be torn away, watching as the horrid mark the color of fire appeared on the forehead of her childhood friend, as his body dissipated from the toes right up to that beautiful nose.

“No no no no,” Bernadetta stumbled backwards as Yuri was fully absorbed into the Shadows. She forgot that she was supposed to be quiet, that they would come for her next, and made no effort to stop the tears that spilled down her cheeks. She had had him. She had had Yuri back for the briefest moment, was reunited with the only real friend she’d had as a child, and then he was gone again. Bernadetta looked at the cracked doorway, at the shadows still in the hallway in the space Yuri had occupied just seconds before, and she screamed as loudly as she could.

When Bernadetta looked down, her hands were obscured by a swirling vortex that glowed the brightest blue.


	4. It's About Time, Part One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the sake of sticking to prompts for FE3H Whump Week, this chapter had to be split in two!

Bernadetta stared down at her newly glowing hands in horror as she took several stumbling steps away from the door.  _ What…what is this?  _ As she raised her palms up and turned them slightly, the glow…shimmered? “Is this…m-magic?’ She’d never been able to cast before. But when she raised her hands to move the spell out, nothing happened. She tried to shake the magic off, but it wouldn’t let go. “What am I doing  _ wrong _ ?” Her hands flung repeatedly towards the floor, but the glow clung fast. 

“Little one.”

The Shadows streamed through the partially open door. Bernadetta tried to take another step backwards but tripped and fell on her butt. “G-go away!” She shook her hands again to try and throw whatever spell was happening, but it still stuck all around her hands. 

Up close, it was almost possible to make out faces in the Shadows, beneath the cloaks. Professor, Manuela. Bernadetta looked closer and she could almost see…

“We can show him to you, if you’d like.”

They knew. Somehow, they knew. “W-what do you w-want?” Her hands thrust up like a giant blue shield, Bernadetta tried to hide. 

“Only what was taken from us. She took everything.”

“S-she?”

“The one you call Archbishop. The leader of your Church.”

_Rhea?_ _Did they mean Rhea? What had Rhea done?_

“Look up, little one.” Their voices almost sounded like…

When Bernadetta looked up, they all had Yuri’s face. 

“That does not belong to you!!!!” With an angry scream, she thrust her hands forward.

It hurt. Everything. Hurt. Bernadetta was everywhere and nowhere at the same time, just as she’d imagined the Shadows were. The world spun around her so fast she thought she might be sick. Was this what magic was? Was casting supposed to feel like this? A blue glow whipped her up into a tornado so frenzied she wasn’t sure she would survive it, but then her feet slammed back into the ground and the room was quiet. Still. No blue. 

Suddenly Bernadetta found herself standing by the bookcase again, Ignatz hesitating in the doorway, and no idea how she’d gotten back there. “Do you want me to stay?” Ignatz asked. 

Bernadetta looked towards the door. Had she…turned back time? She had. Bernadetta had turned back time. Somehow she had used…time magic?

“N-no,” she found herself replying automatically. But then she glanced again at the small opening in the door while picturing what she knew was happening in the corridor. What Yuri had sacrificed. She had to go. She had to. “No. I’m c-coming.” 

“Bernadetta, your nose.”

A swipe under her nose revealed a hand red with blood. Shaking, she followed Ignatz into the corridor, and they shoved the bookcase back over the hole before plunging together into the dark. 

  
  



	5. It’s About Time, Part 2

The tunnel Bernadetta and Ignatz entered was dark once they pulled the bookcase back into place. So dark. The other students had all gone on ahead. 

Ignatz snapped his fingers and produced a small blizzard in the palm of his hand. “It’s not fire, but it’ll give us a little light at least.” 

Bernadetta looked down at her own hands in the tiny glow, the right one still smeared with the blood from her nose. “I-I could try too.”

“I saw something.” Ignatz moved a step ahead and was almost completely absorbed by the dark corridor. “I’m not sure what I saw. A blue flash? It happened so fast.” When Bernadetta said nothing, he continued, “I wasn’t aware you could use magic.”

“I-I w-wasn’t either,” she stammered. 

They walked side by side for a while in the only direction they could, Ignatz cupping his little blue blizzard in his palm. “Do you know how you did it?”

Bernadetta shook her head even though he wouldn’t be able to make out the movement with the little light they had. “I-I…just did it.” She stopped walking, so suddenly that Ignatz kept walking. Taking advantage of the distance, she turned back the way they had come. She had most definitely done something to time. Altered it. Rewound it. Was it something she could do again? Could she take it either further? Stop Yuri from going out that door? “I-Ignatz.”

“Oh, sorry!” He quickly turned back for her. “I didn’t—“

“I think I can use time magic?” The end of the phrase turned up uncertainly. She wasn’t sure what the magic was at all, but she knew Ignatz to be quite smart. He might be able to assist somehow. 

“Time magic?” The question was confused, almost harsh. Like she didn’t know what she was talking about.

She didn’t know anything at all. “I d-don’t k-know.” She took another step back towards the closed bookcase.

“I’ve read some about it,” he volunteered more gently, “But I have never known anyone to harness it. Are you sure that’s what it was?”

Bernadetta was glad for the darkness that obscured the flame of her cheeks as she turned away from him once again. “I don’t know…” She had arrived back at the bookcase, and she took a deep breath to try and steady her nerves. “They h-had him with them, and it just m-made me so s-sad. And an-angry. A-and then it happened.”

“The magic?” 

Bernadetta nodded even though he couldn’t really see it. “Y-yes,” she added. “I was…I f-fell, and th-they were on t-top of me. And then I w-was just so an-angry and suddenly things…rewound.”

“I—“

“Y-you don’t have to believe me,” she interrupted him. “I-it h-happened though.” 

“I believe something happened. It just isn’t something that I…understand.”

A tear trailed down Bernadetta’s cheek as every happy moment she’d had in her childhood, all of them involving Yuri, began to flip through her head like a movie. She’d had a chance to save him, but she’d run away.  _ You’re the worst, Bernie. You never should have left him. Never.  _ “I-I want to try again,” she said out loud. 

Bernadetta held her hands to the back of the bookcase, trying to grasp on to a little bit of the pulse she had felt before. The magic. But there was nothing. She couldn’t make the strange power come back. Yuri wouldn’t be saved. She didn’t realize she’d fallen to her knees until the stones underneath her began to grind into her kneecaps.  _ I can’t save him. I can’t save him. I can’t save him. _ Over and over, the phrase ran through her head as her tears splattered into the dirt unseen, and then the ground sparked blue. Just a brief flash, but a flash nonetheless.

“Oh c-c-come on!” Bernadetta slammed her palms into the ground, coughing as dirt blew back up into her face and took her breath away. She felt Ignatz’s hand gently on her shoulder as she cried, struggled to breathe. “I-I can’t save h-him,” she forced out as she gasped for air. “I h-have to save him, but I c-can’t.”

“Maybe we could try to figure it out together. Perhaps if we could figure out how this power you used works, we could save everyone?”

“E-everyone?”

“If you can really rewind time, Bernadetta, why would we not go back to before these creatures ever came? Stop  _ everything _ that happened after?” When she failed to reply, he asked, “So will you come with me, for now? Just for now, to get somewhere safe. Once we are safe, we can talk this through and figure it out.”

Bernadetta looked up to see the hand Ignatz offered in the dim blue light of his tiny blizzard. She certainly didn’t  _ feel  _ like she could save anyone. But she found herself taking his hand anyway. 

  
  



	6. Make Better Choices

Bernadetta and Ignatz walked for what felt like hours before coming to a dimly lit ladder that disappeared up the stone wall of the corridor. “D-do we go up?”

“You go first,” Ignatz said, ever the gentleman. “I can hold the ladder.”

_ But what if they’re waiting up there? They always know where we are. _ Out loud, Bernadetta stuttered, “O-o-okay.” The ladder rungs felt shaky under her grip, but they all held. The top was obscured by a partially ajar metal cover. Bernadetta slipped her fingers around the edge and shoved, emerging into the dimming light that remained of the day. Had it only been a day? It felt like the Shadows had been chasing them for years. 

“Ignatz!” A voice came from one of the normally empty buildings. “Ignatz, over here!” 

Squinting, Bernadetta could just make out Claude frantically waving them in his direction from behind a cracked open door. Ignatz locked a hand around her wrist and pulled her behind him until they were safe inside the building. 

“Bernadetta!” It was the second time Edelgard had addressed her that day. Possibly the second time ever. Bernadetta avoided Edelgard as much as she possibly could. While Claude expressed gratitude for their safe arrival, Edelgard began to press Bernadetta for information. “You were the last one out. What did you see, before you closed the door? Did you speak to them?”

_ I saw Yuri die. _ “N-no, I d-didn’t.” Bernadetta tried to back away, but Edelgard’s gaze held her fast in place like a mouse frozen with the hawk closing in for dinner. “T-they said it w-was because of R-Rhea. S-something she d-did. That it w-was ab-bout Rhea and the ch-church.”

“What I know of Rhea and the Church….” Edelgard’s tone became hesitant, but she continued, “I know that she asked her followers to devote themselves to her wholeheartedly. To lend her their magic. She’s been playing with magic for years, trying to create a force for….I am not sure exactly. And it took many of their lives. Whether by accident or on purpose, she took their lives. That kind of darkness has a price. Maybe we are that price to be paid.”

“Edelgard, are you saying that the Shadows belong to the souls of these devotees?” Claude’s brow furrowed as he considered this. “Because that’s preposterous.”

“It makes sense,” she replied with a shrug. “I would be incredibly upset if I was one of them. And, in my opinion, whether she meant to or not, Rhea murdered them.” Edelgard looked like she could spit nails as she made no effort to hide her distaste for the dead Archbishop. “And she’s been trying to master it for many years. Many people. Many dead.”

Dimitri scoffed. “Are you saying that Rhea is...How would you even know that? There is no logical basis for any of this information.”

Bernadetta swung her gaze back and forth between the two house leaders as they continued to debate the origin of the shadows, but she finally gave up and went to join Ignatz and Lysithea. 

“Bernadetta, I hope that it’s okay,” Ignatz said upon her approach, “but I have been filling Lysithea in on what you told me in the tunnel. About the magic. I’ve read a great many books, but she has studied a lot more of this sort of thing than I have.”

“O-okay.” Bernadetta sat quietly beside them, her hands tucked underneath her thighs. 

“Do you think you could explain it to me?” Lysithea tucked her long white hair behind her ears. “Ignatz said it has to do with time.”

“I t-think so. I don’t know. My h-hands glowed blue, and t-then I got angry, and then I…rewound them. I think th-that I turned back time?”  _ Rewound them and ran away. Goddess, Bernadetta, you had a chance to save Yuri and you ran.  _ “I-I…I w-wanted…”

“You wanted to save Yuri?” Ignatz took her hand sympathetically. 

“He-he would have been s-so mad if s-something had happened to me.” To Bernadetta’s horror, she started to cry again. 

“He would most definitely have been upset.” Ignatz turned and stared into the fire. 

Lysithea thought about this for a second. “Strong magic is often tied to emotions. If you feel…I mean felt,” her face fell slightly, “something for this Yuri, it might have triggered a power you weren’t aware you had.”

“D-do you think I could do it ag-again?”

Lysithea and Ignatz exchanged a glance. “I think that if we could somehow replicate the emotions you were feeling in the moment that the magic was released, we could trigger it to release again. But what would you do with it, if you had it? You need to think about that too. What is the target of the magic?”

Bernadetta was quiet for a moment.  _ Well, I want to save Yuri, more than anything. But also, I think I’d like to try and fix things. Go back to the beginning of this day and start again.  _ “I—do you t-think I could use it to fix things?” 

With a purse of her lips, Lysithea nodded. “I think maybe you could? I don’t have much experience with time magic, and I am certainly not a master…But certainly anything would be better than where we are right now.”

The house leader discussion behind them had dissolved into mild chaos, and Dedue’s eyes as his hands floated on the hilt of his axe in defense as Dimitri stepped in to share his two cents with the others were borderline distressing. 

“We need to think of the students,” Bernadetta heard Dimitri say. “Edelgard, you have no clue what you’re talking about here.”

“We have done nothing else,” Claude insisted, while at the same time Edelgard argued, “We need to get to the root of the problem and cut it off.”

“That discussion is going…well.” Ignatz cleared his throat and adjusted his glasses. 

Lysithea looked at the house leaders and rolled her eyes. “They will never agree.” To Bernadetta she said, “Tell me about this Yuri.”

Bernadetta closed her eyes. She pictured Yuri when she’d first met him, as a child, the way his short almost blue hair framed his face in all the best ways, the way his gray eyes stared into hers as if they could just see everything that made her her. Every day Bernadetta would go down to the gardens just to see him, as he was the assistant to their head gardener. And every day, Yuri would smile at her, showing her that he could be the friend her age that she’d always wanted. A real friend, not a rich, spoiled brat like all the others her father paraded through. 

Bernadetta didn’t realize she’d said all of that out loud until she looked down and found her hands glowing that same blue. 

“Yes,” Lysithea said, “just like that. How does it feel?”

“I-it feels…It k-kinda tickles.” When Bernadetta looked, she realized Ignatz and Lysithea were holding hands. 

“Now, picture where you want it to go, the magic. Picture it and then just…move the magic there. But keep hold of my hand.”

When Bernadetta closed her eyes and pictured it, the only thing she could see or feel was Yuri. His gray eyes as they met hers across the garden. The smell of the flowers that sprawled in between them. The way the muscles in his arm bulged as he gripped the shovel and struck into the soil. And when she opened her eyes, there he was. Not in the garden, but on the morning everything fell apart. They were at the monastery, in the corner across from the entrance to The Holy Tomb, talking to the girl Bernadetta now knew was Constance, while Bernadetta lurked in the shadows and worked up the nerve to speak to him. 

Except this time, in the shadows, Ignatz and Lysithea stood with her. “This is…the Abyss?” Lysithea looked around. “I wasn’t sure that you’d bring us to wherever you were, but hey, I guess I know much more than I thought I did.”

“What do we do now?” Ignatz adjusted his glasses for the millionth time, and Bernadetta realized it was his nervous habit, like when she bit the skin around her fingernails. “When are we?” 

“T-this morning. Before c-class.” Both Lysithea and Ignatz were looking to Bernadetta for what to do next, and it was quite overwhelming. She had never sought to be any sort of leader. _So…what now?_ _I should talk to him. I’m going to talk to him_. Bernadetta cleared her throat and took a step forward, and everything around her froze.

“Careful!” The voice was almost sing-song, teasing in a way, and attached to the only other being in the room that was moving, a strange transparent girl with green hair braided with pink and white dangling ribbons. A snarky look lanced across her face as she said, “I didn’t give you this magic so you could make a mistake, you know.”

“W-who are you?” It had been such a day that Bernadetta was barely even surprised when the girl shimmered into existence. 

“Who I am is not what’s important here. Who you are, and what you do next, that’s the most important part.”

Bernadetta turned to her almost-friends, but they were frozen just the way they’d been before the girl appeared. 

“The only person who could fix things is the person who had no ulterior motives, wanted nothing for herself, felt nothing but love. And that, little girl, is you. You were here, in the place where so much of me rests, so this power is yours. Now fix things already.”

_ Little girl? This barely adult herself calls others little girl?  _

“Yes. It is my right to call you whatever I choose. And that is what I choose. So prove me wrong. Prove that you’re more than that. Make better choices.”

“Y-you can…”

“Hear your thoughts? I hear everything.” She rolled her eyes. “Absolutely every little thing, and let me tell you, it’s not all things that I want to know. But listen. I don’t have the power to hold this form for long. You need to go back to where it began. Can you do that?”

“Where it…began.”

“Did I stutter?”

Bernadetta’s face flushed in shame, unsure whether the strange girl was making fun of her or was just mean in general. 

“Go to her, and give her what you will find in the back right pocket of your jacket.”

“M-my…her?”

Just as fast as she had appeared, the shimmering girl disappeared and things around Bernadetta began to move again. 

Ignatz shook his head beside her. “That was…”

Bernadetta reached into the pocket of her coat, and her hand closed around an object. How long had it been there? Where had it come from? Magic? Everything around her was magic now. She drew it out to reveal…the oldest necklace that she had ever seen. 

“What is that?” Lysithea raised her hand out to feel the chain that dangled between Bernadetta’s fingers.

_Go back to where it began. Make better choices._ _What if it was as simple as…_ ”I t-think it belongs to Rhea. I n-need to see Rhea.”

“Ooooookay.” Lysithea let the chain fall. “Is this another one of those weird things you can’t explain?” 

_ Make better choices. _

“I n-need to see her alone. Y-you…G-go and warn the others. G-get them moving. Away.”

Ignatz took in the expression on her face and said, “You are really serious, aren’t you?”

She nodded, having already said so many more words than she was comfortable with on a daily basis and knowing she would need to say so many more. She slipped past the two of them saying nothing more, heading for the advisory room. For the only person it seemed how could answer any of her questions. The pathways and corridors had emptied out, most of the other students heading to their classrooms for lessons. 

As Bernadetta went up the stairs and rounded the corner, she found herself suddenly in the air, a force she couldn’t see pinned her up against the wall by her neck. All of the breath wooshed out of her at once as the Shadow took shape.

“You!” The Shadow hissed, more forms appearing around it. “We remember you!” The second statement became the voice of many. They had no physical hands, yet somehow they held Bernadetta in the air and kept her from drawing in any air.

Bernadetta reached for her throat, clawing at a force she couldn’t actually see, as her vision filled with red and black spots. This was it. This was definitely it; this was how things would end for her.  _ Make better choices. No one should trust me to make better choices. Why did she trust ME?  _ Everything that had happened was going to happen again, and there was nothing Bernadetta could do. 

And then a bang. A harsh “Stop this at once!” 

Suddenly Bernadetta was falling.

  
  



	7. Apologies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I...suck at endings. I may have bitten off more than I can chew writing a chapter a day for FE3H Whump Week, but at least I have finished! And for that I am proud. I hope you've enjoyed it! :)

Bernadetta landed on the ground, her ankle twisted underneath her body.

“Leave this child alone!”

The Shadows vanished as quickly as they had appeared, spinning angrily as they dissipated. Was it magic?

Not magic. Rhea. Her beautiful white cloak swished across the floor around her feet as she moved to stand directly before Rhea. “Are you all right, child?”

“Y-yes, I think so.” Bernadetta used the wall to balance and pulled herself to her feet, unsure what to say next. How would she explain what had happened without seeming even more insane than she probably already did?

Rhea turned and began to walk away.

 _Make better choices._ “W-wait. Please.”

The older woman turned back. “Yes?”

“You d-didn’t s-seem surprised. To s-see the—“

“No.” Rhea met Bernadetta’s gaze. “It was not a surprise. It has been coming, I believe. I am sorry you got involved, that was never my intention.”

There it was, the path to what Bernadetta needed to say. “M-maybe not your in-intention, but we are involved n-now. All of us.”

“Whatever do you mean? This is not your fight.”

“They have m-made it m-my fight.” Bernadetta forced the words out while fumbling in her pocket for the necklace. “I…was su-supposed to g-give this to y-you.”

Rhea took the necklace and cupped it in the palm of her left hand, tracing the design with the fingers of her right. As Bernadetta watched, Rhea’s eyes welled up with tears. “Where did you get this?”

Unsure what to say, Bernadetta stammered, “I—S-someone gave it to me.”

“I had thought this lost.” Rhea looked at Bernadetta. “You say it was given to you?”

Bernadetta nodded silently.

“It belonged to my…to someone I cared for very deeply. Someone I would give everything for. Do you know what that’s like? To care for someone so deeply that you would give everything just for another moment with them?”

“I d-do.” She pictured Yuri’s face as she’d seen him that morning, by the entrance to the tomb. “I think I r-really d-do.”

“Tell me what you meant by this being your fight? Has something happened?” Rhea’s eyes stared at Bernadetta with even more intensity than normal as she fingered the necklace.

“T-those…t-things. T-they’re going to attack the s-students. And you.”

“When? How do you know this information?”

Bernadetta shook her head and looked at the necklace Rhea held. “I—“

Rhea looked at the necklace again and back to Bernadetta.

“T-they said y-you…T-they w-want something b-b-back. S-something you t-took.”

The tears Rhea had withheld began to spill over. “Have you seen her?”

“W-who?”

“My mother.” She dropped onto a bench as if the weight of the world had crushed her. “Sit with me.”

Bernadetta looked back out the way she’d come, wondering how much time she had left. “W-what if they—“

“I have done some very stupid things.”

It wasn’t clear whether she was speaking to Bernadetta or to herself.

“I took people under my wing…I used their magics to try and bring my mother back.”

 _Was that girl…_ ”Y-your m-mother?” _Magic. Edelgard was right._

“She was killed long ago. I thought that by utilizing the magic, I could return her to me.”

As Rhea spoke, the Shadows materialized over her shoulder. Bernadetta gasped, able to make out their faces as they swirled into being.

Rhea followed Bernadetta’s gaze and glanced over her shoulder to see the Shadows. “Leave my students out of this.” She rose and advanced on the fog. “Your quarrel is with me, and me alone.”

“Rhea,” the Shadows hissed.

“I cannot give you back what you’ve lost, and for that I…”

“You are…?” The fog grew darker and then light again.

“I am sorry.” The word rushed out of Rhea. “This needs to stop. This needs to stop and…” Her voice trailed off as she glanced at the necklace once again. “I need to let her go.”

The Shadows swirled in silence.

“I can never tell you how sorry I am. Please. Do what you would like with me,” Rhea said quietly, “but please leave my students be.”

As Bernadetta watched, the Shadows began to fade away. _Was that all they wanted? An apology? All of that?_

Rhea bent over, her head in her hands, the chain of the necklace still visible between her fingers.

“W-would you like m-me to stay with you?” Bernadetta offered.

“No, child. I must be alone with this. I must sit with what I’ve done and figure out how to….if I can…”

“If you’re s-sure.” Bernadetta stood up and backed away before adding, “I t-think your m-mother l-loved you very m-much.”

Bernadetta left Rhea alone on the bench and made her way down into the Abyss. He was down there, just where she’d thought he would be, sitting on a stool at the inn across from Constance and talking a mile a minute with very flamboyant hands.

On her approach, Yuri looked up and met her gaze. “Ber…Bernadetta??” He stood up and pushed his stool back to draw her into an embrace.

 _Make better choices._ Bernadetta let herself stay in the hug, even gave a little back. It didn’t feel uncomfortable the way it normally would. It felt right. He felt right. “I’ve missed you,” she told him, not an ounce of stutter in the words.

Bernadetta would try being in the world. She would make better choices. Today she had, in a weird way, been the hero, and not many people would ever know. But she would. And she’d be stronger for it.


End file.
